Whole grains play an important role in a healthy and balanced diet. Consumption of whole grains provide many health benefits including lowering the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. Whole grains have also been found to promote weight management and may protect against cancer.
Pulses also play an important role in a healthy and balanced diet. Because of their high protein content, pulses such as kidney beans and lentils are sometimes used as meat substitutes and are heavily consumed by vegetarians and vegans for this reason. Pulses are also low in fat, high in dietary fiber, and rich in antioxidants.
Although grains and pulses provide many health benefits, they are not consumed as frequently as they should be by the average American due to the substantial preparation time needed to cook these foods. In general, a whole grain with its bran layer intact and no modifications made to its structure will cook on the stovetop in about 35 to 45 minutes. Mature pulses must be soaked and then cooked thoroughly before they can be eaten, which can be very time consuming (from one hour to overnight preparation).
Although attempts have been made to provide the consumer with a quick-cooking grain or pulse, these attempts are either expensive to commercially produce due to efficiency or result in a product that is overly puffed, thereby compromising the original texture, flavor and appearance of the original grain and resulting in consumer skepticism. Further, the current technologies that are used to make quick-cooking grains and pulses have many disadvantages. For instance, most of these technologies require pre-cooking with a large amount of water and then removing the water at great expense and poor efficiencies. Another method involves pre-hydrating in the case of grains and pulses to a high moisture and then freeze drying to remove moisture while retaining a porous, reduced density whole particle. Once again, this process is expensive and inefficient when performed on a commercial scale. Additionally, grains can be pre-cooked in an extruder and subsequently formed into grain-like shapes, but these methods change the appearance of the grain and leave it looking unnatural.
In light of the foregoing, a need exists in the field for efficient methods for efficiently and cost-effectively making quick-cooking whole grains and pulses wherein the identity of the caryopsis does not change significantly during processing. Therefore, not only the taste, but also the appearance of the caryopsis is acceptable to the consumer.
The processing methods described and claimed herein create stable, porous, dry whole kernel products without the need for hydrating to 60-80% moisture and then removing the moisture back down to a stable moisture content. This invention also provides a controlled level of puffing for whole grains or whole pulses. Current gun puffed grains are highly puffed and lose their original identity when cooked or soaked in water. They also have a Styrofoam texture in a dry state. With a reduced level of puffing the whole grains and pulses retain their identity when cooked and have a more robust texture when eaten in their dry state. This technology also enables infusion of liquids into the grain or legume structure.